"Europe 2020 - Civic Visions" international conference

The international conference "Europe 2020 - Civic Visions", part of the "Interacting with the European Parliament" initiative, will be held in Sofia on January 29 and 30 (Friday and Saturday), 2010.

The conference venue is the "Grand Hotel Sofia" on Gurko Street 1 in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.

The "Europe 2020 - Civic Visions" international conference is part of the "Interacting with the European Parliament" initiative. This project's implementing organizations are the European Institute, the Center for Policy Modernization and Europe Gateway and it is a fact due to the the financial support of the European Parliament's DG "Communication".

The conference will be a common place for participants from various countries to brainstorm about the contemporary challenges, which the European Union is facing, as well as about the ways in which the civic sector can contribute to the debate on the definition of the Union's development goals until 2020.

This two-day conference aims at bringing together representatives of CSOs, both grass-root and think-tank organizations, academic representatives and MEPs, giving them the floor to develop visions about Europe's future, on the basis of their concrete experience and practice. The objective of the conference is to come up with a framework on what Europe should look like in 2020, as well as with ideas about the ways to achieve the presented goals and the action that should be taken to implement these.

The conference team invites all the citizens, interested in these topics, to join the debate - really or virtually, depending on where you are. We are looking forward to hearing your opinions and proposals on issues such as the European democracy, the role of the national state and its institutions, the European cultural space and identity, the education, the youth issues, the EU solidarity as shared responsibility for development, the challenges to the Cohesion policy, the EU enlargement and the social issues.

We encourage you to contribute in one of the panels (see below) through sending us an email or through posting a comment in the forum before the conference's start.

The "Europe 2020 - Civic Visions" conference has three panels:

• Panel 1 – The European democracy – mission possible?
• Panel 2 - European cultural space and identity;
• Panel 3 - The solidarity in the EU – shared responsibility for development.

The conference working languages are English, Bulgarian and French. Simultaneous translation is provided.

All the discussions will be aired live online on the initiative's website in English. Viewers and readers from all parts of the world are very welcome to share their views...